The Skeleton's Knee (37 page)

He nodded. “Good point. I also need to update the State’s Attorney. I won’t say anything to the selectmen about Shattuck or the stakeout—just that you were in Chicago, Joe, and stirred up a few wasps in the process.”

· · ·

The meeting Brandt had arranged with the squad had the elements of an awkward homecoming, prefaced as it was by the ritual number of jokes about my battered appearance, and offset by several quizzical sideward glances I was not intended to see.

“I didn’t get all the answers in Chicago that I’d banked on,” I began. “But I did get a few. I’m hoping that with the information you’ve been gathering in my absence, we’ll be able to wrap this case up fast. And speed, unfortunately, is now of the essence. It turns out we are no longer the only ones interested in finding out who opened up on us with an M-16. For that reason, I want to stress that what is said in this room stays here. There will be no interoffice memos, no casual chats by the coffee machine, and no late-night pillow talk with wives or significant others. If anyone questions what we’re up to, your answer should be we’re trying to put a name to the skeleton and find the person who did the shooting. Don’t tell anyone how we’re progressing. Our advantages in this race are knowledge and speed. If we give those away, we lose. It’s that simple.”

“Who’s our competition?” Ron asked.

I held up a mug shot. “This man—Robert Shattuck.” I then passed it to Ron to make a tour of the table.

“That photograph was taken about twenty years ago, so age the face in your minds and add gray hair—last seen tied back in a ponytail. Shattuck is just over six feet, trim and fit—one seventy-five to one eighty—and fifty-five years old. He is armed and violent. These”—I tapped my bandages with my finger—”are the results of some of his handiwork. He’s a dangerous man.”

I held up the two shots of Pendergast. “And this is our skeleton—David Pendergast, born in Marquette, Michigan, aged twenty-nine when he died. From what I could find out, he was charismatic, reckless, manipulative—and also dangerous. Not unlike Shattuck. I’ll have copies made of all these.”

I leaned forward on the table, choosing my words carefully. “Mr. Shattuck knows who we’re after—as far as I can make out, it’s someone from his past—but he doesn’t know where he’s hiding. Which means Shattuck may end up, one way or another, depending on us to supply that information. If he does show up in Brattleboro, he should stick out like a sore thumb, so he’ll probably act quickly and ruthlessly.

“He might try to get to me through Gail Zigman, since our friendship is common knowledge. If that happens, we hope to use that opportunity to lure Shattuck out into the open. The chief will fill you in.”

Brandt didn’t bother standing. In his familiar unemotional style, he told them of the plan he and Gail had worked up in the car. Gail would be under discreet guard at home, and would make outings only if absolutely necessary, and then always with a man on the floor of her car and another team tailing. The stakeout would be coordinated by the department’s Special Response Team—our version of SWAT—of which both Ron and Sammie were members. Brandt told them there would be an SRT meeting following this one. Given my involvement with Gail, he added, it had been agreed that I would concentrate on the other aspects of the investigation.

Kunkle spoke up after Brandt had finished. “Why not just pull in our snitches and spread the word about this guy? It’s not like he has a million places to hide.”

I nodded in agreement. “We need to shake the bushes, but until we know Shattuck’s in the area, the main thrust of this investigation should be to find the shooter. Again”—I raised my hand for emphasis—“the stakeout has got to be kept under wraps. Should Shattuck turn up, he’ll expect a minor manhunt, but he may not think we’re bright enough to set a trap.”

I stepped away from the table and began to pace at the head of the room. “Mr. Dunn has kindly made available to us a list of former residents of so-called Hippie Hollow, dating back to the time of Fred Coyner’s wife’s death. The list is fairly extensive, and we don’t know how many—if any—of them are still living in the area. But we need to find the ones who are and question them about Fuller, Pendergast, and anyone else who might have been with them. That means telephone directories, phone calls, the computer, and so forth. If you get a hit, follow it up in person and let me know as soon as possible. Remember: We want to do it right, but it’s got to be fast, and it’s got to be discreet. We don’t want to tip our hand, so watch your backs, and take note of anything or anyone unusual.

“Our second job is to locate the subject of the astrology chart that was stolen from Fuller’s house. We now know from an evaluation we had made of a copy of that chart that the subject was born at 10:55
P.M.
, eastern standard time, on April 7, 1946, in the Mount Vernon/ White Plains area of New York, just north of Manhattan. I know a lot of you are probably as skeptical about this as I am, but it is a lead, and we need to see if we can match a name to those statistics.”

DeFlorio let out a whistle. “Christ. Does that mean we got to call every hospital?”

“No,” Kunkle growled scornfully. “County or town clerks have those records, assuming they’re cooperative.”

Brandt stirred in his seat. “Actually, there may be an easier way—bypassing the clerks and the fees and the paperwork. When I took the FBI Academy refresher course a few years ago, I got friendly with a state police investigator from that area who might be able to help us out. Let me give him a call. If I make it sound urgent enough, we might get something in a couple of hours instead of waiting days for the bureaucrats to get stimulated.”

I nodded my agreement. “Okay, that’ll allow us to concentrate on the ex-Hippie Hollow residents. Sammie, you were the one who interviewed the old mortician at the Retreat, right?”

She paused in gathering her papers together. “Yes, for what it was worth—he was pretty far gone.”

“He probably had an assistant back then. Maybe he or she might remember something.” Sammie reddened slightly, perhaps feeling I was finding fault with her. “I’ll call and find out.”

“Okay. If there is such a person, set up an interview ASAP. We can do it together.”

I turned my attention to the rest of them, who were beginning to head for the door. “We’ll reconvene here at 1630.”

· · ·

Sammie stuck her head into Brandt’s office a half hour later and announced she’d located the mortician’s ex-assistant. I made my apologies to Billy Manierre and Brandt and joined her with a sigh of relief. The three of us had been discussing how to juggle the schedules of both the Special Response Team and Billy’s three patrol shifts, and I’d been finding the process difficult to deal with objectively.

Roland Bennet—the name Sammie had gotten from the mortician—was part owner of the Chameleon Café on Flat Street, Brattleboro’s one forthright gay bar. There was a large “Closed” sign in the window; Sammie pounded on the door as she’d been instructed on the phone, and in a few moments we heard rapid footsteps approaching from the inside.

Bennet greeted us like a long-lost aunt; he was expansive, gregarious, and utterly unfazed by our official status. “I apologize for the smell in here—too many cigarettes and too many bodies. You don’t mind if I leave the door open, do you? I have a fan going in the back, but it takes forever without a cross current.”

He ushered us though the small lobby to a twenty-foot oak and brass bar that lined one wall of the place and pulled out a couple of stools for us. He then circled behind the bar. “Can I get you anything to drink? Juice? Maybe a mid-morning snack?” At the back of the large room, beyond a cluster of small tables and a door leading to the kitchen, the dance floor was being vacuumed by a young man wearing bib-top overalls and no shirt.

We both shook our heads.

Bennet looked me over. “So, you’re Joe Gunther. I’ve seen you around—I just never put the name to the face. You wanted to talk to me about my days in the body business?”

I returned his smile, not knowing—or caring—if his slightly campy tone was natural or just for my benefit. “We understand you worked for Ed Guillaume in the late sixties, early seventies.”

“That’s right—I made ’em look good one last time.”

“Do you remember making Hannah Coyner look good in 1970?”

He laughed. “Good God, no—none of them had names as far as I was concerned.”

“She died of cancer. Her husband was Fred Coyner. He might’ve visited the parlor with two hippies—bell-bottoms, long hair.” I laid the photos of Fuller and Pendergast on the bar.

Bennet took a long moment studying them, especially the one of David Pendergast. A slow smile spread across his face. “I remember this one. He took my breath away—God, that was so many years ago.”

I felt Sammie, as conventional as most cops, struggling to maintain her composure.

“Do you remember anything specific? Anything he said or did?”

“Don’t I wish. I never even spoke to him. I saw them through an open door. I worked mostly in the back; old Guillaume did the soft-shoe stuff. But I remember seeing this one and just staring—he was so beautiful.”

“You didn’t overhear anything?”

“No. It was always the usual claptrap, anyway.” He held the picture in his hand like a star-struck movie fan. “That’s amazing, seeing him so many years later.”

I removed the photo gently and replaced it with Fuller’s—the one that had been artificially “youthened.”

“How about him? Was he the other guy?”

Bennet made a face. “There was no other guy. It was a girl.”

I turned in surprise to Sammie. “Was Guillaume sure about it being two men?”

“I wouldn’t say he was sure about anything.”

I looked back at Bennet. “Are you sure it was a girl?”

He crinkled his nose at me, hamming it up now. “I may not have much use for them, but I know what they look like.”

“All right. Just at a glance, did they seem like a couple?”

He thought back and finally shook his head. “It’s hard—that long ago, but I don’t think so.” Then he smiled. “I was only really interested in him, you know?”

I gathered the pictures together and put them in my pocket.

Bennet watched the last one go with an expression of regret. “Thanks, Mr. Bennet; you’ve been a big help.”

He smiled again, back to hamming it up. “My pleasure. Come back when you’re off duty sometime—and bring your friend in the photo if you find him.”

I pushed Sammie out the door before she could explode.

· · ·

Later that afternoon, Dennis DeFlorio called me on the phone, sounding slightly out of breath, as usual. “Joe, I’ve found somebody here who used to live on the buses, but he’s not being too friendly.”

“Where are you?”

“Putney—The Sourdough Bakery. This guy’s one of the bakers, named Gary Schenk.”

“I’ll be right up.”

Putney is about seven miles north of Brattleboro on the interstate, and is famous for its pride, its politics, and its dense population of artistic types.

The Sourdough Bakery bragged of twenty-year-old commune roots and was run by mostly underfed-looking, soft-spoken vegetarians. I found Dennis in the parking lot near the building’s rear entrance, his fat, sweaty, meat-fed body looking particularly out of place.

“He’s inside—refuses to talk to me.”

“Okay. Why don’t you wait in your car? I’ll let you know what I find out later.”

He didn’t look unhappy with the suggestion. While others might have taken offense, Dennis took almost everything as it came—which had both its up and down sides.

The temperature inside the bakery was blistering, and as soon as I’d introduced myself to Gary Schenk, I moved the interview back outside, near a small corral containing the garbage cans.

Schenk was in his mid-forties, with long hair held in place by a colorful bandanna, and sporting a thick and handsome waxed mustache, obviously a source of some vanity. He was not overly happy to see me. “What do you guys want, anyway?”

“Detective DeFlorio didn’t explain?”

“He said you were trying to find someone from the Hippie Hollow days. That was a long time ago.”

“He show you pictures?”

Schenk scowled at me. “Look, I’m busy. I don’t have time to play twenty questions. Why don’t you go bother somebody else?”

I showed him Pendergast’s smiling face. “Ring a bell?”

There was a long pause as Schenk looked at me, realizing I was not about to let him go until he cooperated. With an angry, exasperated sigh, he snatched the photo from my hand and glared at it. “Okay, I remember him. Satisfied?”

“What was his name?”

His mouth dropped open. “How the hell do I know? Dewdrop or Acidhead or Groovy or who the fuck cares. Nobody had real names back then. He was just a guy.”

“Traveling with this man.” I handed him Fuller’s picture.

This time, he looked more carefully, taken aback by the calculated sureness in my voice. “Yeah. I remember them.”

“And a girl.”

He looked peeved again. “Look, if you know all this, why waste my time?”

“They keep mostly to themselves?”

“The girl and this one did”—he tapped Fuller’s photo—”but the big guy got into everybody’s business. Real pain in the ass. I was happy to see them go.”

“Were you there when Fred Coyner blew out the bus windows with a shotgun?”

Schenk paused. “Man, that is ancient history.”

“How did the big guy react to it?”

He scratched his head, for once giving the issue some thought. “He was really into it, wondering why the old dude did it. They all split pretty soon after that.”

“Did they ever talk about where they came from?”

“Nope—they mostly hung together.”

“They ever flash any big bills?”

Schenk laughed. “Oh, right—we all had loads of that. Look, I gotta get back to work.”

He moved toward the back door.

“One last thing.” I stopped him.

“What?”

“There were only three of them, right? Nobody else?”

“Not that I ever saw.”

“Was the girl particularly fond of one or the other of the two men?”

“Jesus—you guys. She was hitched to the quiet one. The big guy was too wrapped up in himself.”